Just to remind you of what's going on. I am writing a story. You have chosen the setting and the participants, now you'll get to choose the direction of the story as we go along.

While this first entry is much shorter than even a short Jack Collier Story entry, I still want to cut it. I've honestly got no idea where this is going. I've only just written it right now. The only editorial work that's been done is that I spell checked it.

Ace Riley and Kitty the "Cyber-Assistant" in... um... actually what are we going to call this? The Silly Story? Maybe we could go with "Why Democracy is a Bad Idea" for the title? I have no idea. Since I don't know what the story is going to be about I have no idea how to title it. Put your title in the suggestion box! The poll is at the end of the entry.

Captain Tom Riley walked past the long bar of the club, where a steam powered retro-bot clanked as he wiped a glass. The retro-bot was a humanoid bot, probably built to look older and less advanced than it was. The steam was real though, and the large gears on it’s arms made it clank as it move back and forth. He wasn’t interested in a drink though. If anything, he disapproved of strong drink.

He saw her from across the room and knew she was who he had been sent to look for. The elastic material of what could only charitably be called a shirt was tight across her chest and something he could have sworn was a belt was around her waist. She smiled at him as he approached.

As he sat down at the table, he marveled at how almost right it was while still being wrong. Ace Riley, Space Adventurer had never actually had to hire a cyber-whore, and all his other dealings with bots were with the honest variety. The bots on his ship didn’t need the synth-skin, the personality programming or even the human appearance. They were simply working bots on a space ship, honest and true. As a result, he hadn’t been prepared for how almost real Kitty looked. He’d expected jerky, mechanical movements, and a rubbery skin that didn’t move quite right. He’d seen a few of them in the movies when he was a kid, he thought he knew what to expect.

This was not an early model though. Kitty was a ZX-7, the latest thing off what was rapidly becoming less an assembly line and more a farm. The Kyren Company had been producing what they called “Cyber-Assistants” for years and had pretty much gotten the whole thing down to a science. While the skin wasn’t actually a living thing, it was the next best thing, while there was a skeleton of titanium and small motors under the pseudo-flesh, there were fibers of the false skin attached to it. When her head moved, the flesh on her pulled slightly like a real woman’s neck might. There was something not quite right in the facial expression though, something about it looked wrong. Maybe she blinked too much, maybe her expressions were a little too large, but it was defiantly not a person that was sitting across from him.

“I’m Kitty.” She announced in a pleasant contralto voice. “The hooker with a heart of gold.”

“Is it real gold?” He asked, and found his eyes pulled down to look toward her left breast.

“It’s a metaphorical heart. I’m designed to be sympathetic and helpful.” She told him, and the tilt of her head looked a little pre-programmed to him. “If you cut open my chest all you’ll find is an air bladder, a power plant and a very expensive repair bill.”

“I wasn’t going to try to…” He realized he was staring at the breast, which was rising and falling at an unvarying rate.

“You can look at my breasts.” She announced. “It’s all right, they’re very real.”

“No, I’m fine.” He said looking into the unrealistically purple eyes.

He realized that for the first time since he was fourteen a female was making him blush. He felt the warmth on his face as blood rushed in from capillaries that had opened themselves wide to let the red in. This made him blush even more, which she took for something other than what it was.

“Look.” She grabbed at the extraordinarily low neck of the shirt and pulled it aside to expose one breast with a small pink nipple. “We’ll just get this over now and you won’t be embarrassed about it anymore.”

Before he could explain that the problem was not breasts but robotic females that look almost but not quite life like, she had taken his hand and pressed it against the soft warm syth-flesh of her breast. Surprisingly, it felt like a woman’s breast. It didn’t feel like silicone or rubber or even Nyktex like he’d feared. It had warmth and texture. He found he couldn’t help but work the soft false boob in his hand, playing with the just too pink nipple slightly to see if it responded like a proper one. It did, which caused him to remember that he was not here for pleasure. He was on a job and he needed to hire a hooker-bot for that job.

“Yes, well.” He said leaning back and watching as she repositioned the false flesh back into place and then reposition it again, just like a real woman would do. “I should introduce myself.”

“I don’t need names.” She said shaking her head. “Unless you want to. I can also wipe my memory of you or keep it in place if you think you’ll need me to remember you. I use new, sealed internal bags every time and am thoroughly cleaned of all biological material after every use. My clean schedule can be checked online and my counters are untampered.”

“I don’t need all of that.” He said.

“I know, but I need to tell you to be in compliance with Order 1123411 of the Space Code.”

“But I don’t need you as a customer.” He finally managed to interject. “I mean, I’ll need your services, but I’m not the customer.”

“Oh.” She said and looked at his rank bars on his shoulder. “Since when does Space Patrol send square jawed Captains to gather up Cyber Assistants for the top brass? Isn’t that the sort of thing you’d leave to green lieutenants?”

“It’s not like that either.” He announced. “I don’t need you for anything like that. I need you to come with me to the Austen System for an assignment.”

“What sort of assignment would require a Captain of the Space Patrol to take a Cyber Assistant to the Austen System?” She asked.

“I’ll tell you on the way.” He said standing. “All time will be compensated. Any and all damages will be repaired at the expense of the Space Patrol. Will you come?”

“I’ll need to collect a few supplies.” She said standing. While he didn’t want to, he couldn’t help himself from watching her legs uncross and lift her up to stand. It seemed even when they were entirely faked, he still liked a good pair of legs.

Half an hour later they met at the loading bay, she had a small suitcase with her. It was about twice the size of the briefcase he himself was carrying and half the size he was expecting.

“So are we going straight to the Austen System or are we gathering more troops for your secret mission first?” Kitty asked as she looked him over in his silver foil flight suit. She was ready for whatever he had in mind, no matter what it was.